Fish Memorial remodels catheterization lab

Thursday

Feb 14, 2013 at 5:30 AM

ORANGE CITY - Florida Hospital Fish Memorial is remodeling its catheterization lab and upgrading its equipment in order to give the lab a focus on vascular health. All in all, this renovation will cost about $750,000 and is expected to be completed in March. The decision to enhance the existing catheterization lab is just one example of the hospital's investment in vascular health. The news comes on the heels of the hospital hiring Michelle Keith to serve as the vascular navigator. In this role, Keith is responsible for facilitating teamwork between radiologists, cardiologists and vascular surgeons to collectively determine the best course of treatment for each individual patient. An additional facet to Keith's role at Florida Hospital Fish Memorial is to assist in the development of a Vascular Center of Excellence. "The equipment we currently have does not have the ability to perform comprehensive vascular procedures," said Keith. "This new equipment will have highly technical imaging programs that will allow the team to take care of more patients with more complex vascular disease." Danielle Johnson, chief operating officer at the hospital, shed some additional light on why the hospital is focusing on vascular disease. "Cardiac disease is the number one killer of Americans; every 34 seconds someone dies from it," said Johnson. "If you have cardiac disease, you probably have vascular disease too." The only difference between cardiac disease and vascular disease is the location: cardiac disease is the build-up of plaque in the arteries in your heart, while vascular disease is the build-up of plaque in any of your arteries outside of the heart. "A build-up of plaque in the arteries has a compounding effect. When it builds-up in your arteries, the blood flow in that area slows down. This can lead to wounds that don't heal, which then become infected. This, unfortunately, then leads to amputations," Johnson said. "By developing a Vascular Center of Excellence, we hope to catch vascular disease earlier and prevent the downstream impact that requires interventional or surgical procedures, ultimately preventing as many amputations as possible."